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Quotes

Whether for good or evil, it is sadly inevitable that all political leadership requires the artifices of theatrical illusion. In the politics of a democracy, the shortest distance between two points is often a crooked line.

—Arthur Miller, 2001

No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed or outlawed or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor will we send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.

—Magna Carta, 1215

The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.

—Laozi

It is impossible to tell which of the two dispositions we find in men is more harmful in a republic, that which seeks to maintain an established position or that which has none but seeks to acquire it.

—Niccolò Machiavelli, c. 1515

Written laws are like spiderwebs: they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.

—Anacharsis, c. 550 BC

My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.

—Frederick the Great, c. 1770

The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.

—Anthony Burgess, 1972

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

—Dean Acheson, 1970

There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.

—Anthony Trollope, 1862

I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.

—John Maynard Keynes, 1917

The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.

—Herodotus, c. 425 BC

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

—E.B. White, 1944

The vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.

—John Nance Garner, c. 1967